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QUANTUM FLUCTUATIONS IN SMALL LASERS
by
Kaushik Roy Choudhury
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(PHYSICS)
August 2011
Copyright 2011 Kaushik Roy Choudhury

Quantum ﬂuctuations play a critical role in determining the steady-state and transient response of a laser. Such ﬂuctuations can dominate behavior when there is a small number of particles in the system. Correlations between n discrete excited electronic states and s discrete photons can create non-Poisson probability distributions and damp the average dynamic response of laser emission. In this thesis a quantum mechanical treatment of ﬂuctuations and saturable absorption in meso-scale lasers is presented. Time evolution of the density matrix is obtained from numerical integration and ﬁeld-ﬁeld and intensity-intensity correlations are calculated to obtain steady-state line width and photon statistics. Inclusion of a saturable absorber in the otherwise homogeneous medium is shown to suppress lasing, increase ﬂuctuations, and enhance spontaneous emission near threshold. Methods to connect between quantum, meso-scale and classical systems is also developed.

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QUANTUM FLUCTUATIONS IN SMALL LASERS
by
Kaushik Roy Choudhury
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(PHYSICS)
August 2011
Copyright 2011 Kaushik Roy Choudhury